Sunday, December 16, 2012

Christmas Dress, Butterick B5523

Butterick B5523

My Christmas dress this year is COMFY! I used a rayon ponte double knit in Christmas red and Butterick B5523 to make a perfectly comfy and cute dress. A few reviews on PatternReview mentioned the bust was "snug." I did a FBA and almost went up a size due to the knit not being super stretchy. I came back down to my original size and whipped up the dress in 48 hours for a Christmas party. My only changes are the FBA and I used my coverstitch machine on the hems. A note for others about the pleats: it takes a firm fabric to hold the pleats, but the pleats are shallow and would hold a better pleat if they were deeper....

I debated about that very topic. I read a few reference books and found a note in Connie Crawford's book about t-shirt fitting. She stated something about adding fabric and working with the shoulder seams until you got a fit. That is what I did. I added width and length to the bust area and then messed around with the shoulder seam until it was satisfactory to my 48 hour of construction needs. Hope that helps!